Former Olympic skaters Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir are NBC’s lead figure skating analysts at the Winter Games in South Korea. They had a rough outing on Thursday, according to social media. Charlie RiedelAP

Former Olympic skaters Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir are NBC’s lead figure skating analysts at the Winter Games in South Korea. They had a rough outing on Thursday, according to social media. Charlie RiedelAP

The Wall Street Journal gushed all over them as the young, charismatic pair headed to South Korea: “The most incisive, most engaging and maybe even the best sports broadcasters on television wear bedazzled headsets.”

Tara and Johnny — as they call themselves — made it clear that their analysis of skaters in Pyeongchang will be critical, blunt and honest. “For some reason, we just don’t care,” Lipinski told the Journal. “We tell it like it is.”

Added Weir: “It’s the era of reality TV. And we try to make the best reality TV show there is at the Olympics.”

Sports commentary is a critical job. Figure skating should be treated no differently than football or hockey. Real critiques > Fluff.

#Olympics So annoyed with these team ice skating commentators Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir. A moment ago they were praising Nathan Chen as if he were a God and he makes a mistake (he is human) and now they are crucifying him. Opening ceremonies haven't even happened yet.

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Throughout the broadcast, social media users complained about how the duo crossed that fine line between critical and catty.

These #Olympics figure skating commentators are BRUTAL. They called one skater’s the “weak link” and his performance “technically a disaster” and another’s “abysmal,” “the worst I’ve ever seen from him.” I’m over here like pic.twitter.com/lqYQW0XwvL

Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir need to ease up on the rude, brutal commentary, unless they're about to strap on the old skates and show us how it's done. And in those unfortunate, hideous outfits, it looks like that's exactly what they intend to do. #Olympics

Ugh, Tara and Johnny are both too talkative and too savage for me. (a) shut up a little and (b) put down the thesaurus and stop collecting increasingly intense ways to say "not good"#Olympics#PyeongChang2018#FigureSkating

“If they keep improving, they could eventually be considered among the strongest niche sport commentators on television, and there are very valid reasons for why they were so aggressive last night: the skating was awful.”

It’s not the job of professional commentators to be nice, Rawden wrote.

“It’s also not their job to be mean. It’s their job to explain what’s happening and offer context to those of us watching at home. So, when everyone is performing better than expected, we should expect to hear lots of positive statements. When everyone is screwing up, we should hear lots of negative statements. Last night was (mostly) a bloodbath. As a viewer, I would prefer to hear the truth, not some nicey-nice, overly optimistic slant on the truth.”

Fireworks are launched during the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Games. Associated Press; Monty Davis, curator